The fabrication of integrated circuits includes many diverse processing steps. One of the operations frequently employed is the deposition of a dielectric film into a gap between features patterned over or into silicon substrates. One method of depositing such a film is through plasma enhanced atomic layer deposition (PEALD). In this type of method, several operations are undertaken in a cyclic manner to deposit a conformal film. Typically, PEALD processes include the steps of (a) providing a dose of a first reactant to a reaction chamber, (b) purging the reaction chamber, (c) providing a flow of a second reactant, (d) igniting a continuous wave plasma in the reaction chamber, and (e) extinguishing the plasma and purging the reaction chamber. As a result of the nature of precursor delivery/adsorption onto the substrate surface, a single cycle of a PEALD process deposits a monolayer of material. The operations may be repeated a number of times to deposit additional monolayers to reach a desired film thickness.